Born on the Fourth of July...

I was indeed antsy with anticipation for a nice, relaxing 4-day weekend last Friday when I got out of bed that morning. What I got that night when I went to bed, instead, was the flu. Which lasted. And lasted. And lasted. And still lasted. I thought that maybe I had food poisoning (I'm truly sorry for ever doubting you Arby's!), but I am now positive it wasn't. Archer had some pretty foul diapers over the holiday weekend as well and just wasn't himself. Nora had some "bowel issues" earlier in the week as you read in my earlier post, so I wonder if that had anything to do with it? But now Jed's family is all sick and I found out that another little boy from Nora & Archer's daycare was sick on the fourth of July too. Wicked stuff going around.

On another note, Archer has been teething like none other. The little munchkin screams in his sleep and is just miserable. He's been sleeping alot more too. It is pretty uncanny how similar his teething "habits" are to his sister Nora's. We always knew when she was cutting teeth when she would wake in the middle of the night because otherwise she wouldn't wake up during the night whatsoever. We have been blessed with wonderful sleepers in Nora and Archer, I must say. *proud mom moment*

These past few days/weeks have been...what's the word...I can't think of the word, so I'll just say that they have just plain sucked (how eloquent, eh?). With budget reductions across the board within the school district, our department has lost 9 custodians and 5 maintenance employees due to "lack of funds". I'm really going to miss these guys as they have become like family to me.

This weekend brings with it the moving of my Grandpa Habel from one retirement home to another. Long story short: He was getting ripped off. Being taken advantage of. "Legally" robbed. Cheated. Conned. Bamboozled. Taking it up the you-know-what. I'm happy that he's getting out of there for obvious reasons, but my heart is sad for him as it has been the only home he has known since losing Grandma 3 years ago and he has made many wonderful friendships in those 3 years. But I'm confident that he will flourish in his new surroundings and make many more new friendships to cherish. He makes it easy to love him :o)

And now on to my 3-day weekend...here's to hoping for a better one than last.

Wednesday's Fiasco

Recently, Wednesday’s are the night of the week that I look forward to the most because of our park playdate.  However, last night turned into a disastrous fiasco I won’t soon forget.  A bit of back-story first.  I think in all of Archer’s 9 months of life, I have changed 4 really messy diapers, the rest being clean little formed nuggets of poop for us to clean up.  So yesterday when we got home from daycare and he had a really pungent and unpleasant diaper, I assumed either a) he has a stomach bug, or b) he is teething.  Fast-forward a few hours to just past dinnertime.  Nora yells that she has to go poop so she runs into the bathroom and I hear a loud shriek.  She comes running out of the bathroom with her pants and underwear around her ankles as though she is being pursued by an enraged bull .  She had diarrhea and didn't make it to the toilet in time.  Great, grand, wonderful.  I asked her if her stomach hurt, but she said she was ok.  I got her cleaned up and off we quickly went to the park with Jed for his horseshoe league and our weekly playtime.  We got to the park and without so much as even asking if she could go play, she was running full speed towards the playground equipment.  Archer and I set up camp next to the playground equipment where I was enjoying my latest Jen Lancaster memoir and Archer was having himself a hearty snack of Cheerios.  We were there for about an hour and a half when Nora and Archer’s daycare provider, Codi, showed up with her mom and aunt.  In a flash, I see Nora on the playground and I could tell she had to go to the bathroom as she was doing “the potty dance”.  So I made haste and got her to the bathroom.  She made it in time and it was solid.  Phew!  All seemed fine, but my mother’s intuition kicked into high gear and I got the feeling she just wasn't quite done yet so I asked her if she had to still go.  Nope.  She insisted that she was done.  I asked yet again.  Nope.  Done.  So we went back outside and back up the hill.  She literally stepped one little foot onto the playground and screamed, pulled her shorts and undies down around her ankles, and began yelling for me.  She crapped her pants again.  Diarrhea.  And then it was down her leg.  Wow.  What a scene.  I had to hand Archer over to Codi's mom Ellen and clean the wailing Nora up with wipes as best as I could  Luckily her shorts had averted the major disaster and remained clean, so I put those back on her.  I took her down to the bathroom to wash her up with soap and water.  So you’re probably wondering what the back-story of Archer at the beginning was for.  I suppose I’m wondering if the kids have a stomach bug or of Archer is just teething.  Just a coincidence that he happens to have one of his infrequent putrid diapers the same day that his sister has a legendary display of embarrassment?   After all of that, she was fine.  Me?  The jury's still out.